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"With dozens of changes in just the past three years, the formula behind Florida's A-to-F school grading system has been criticized as a confusing mess. But there's been at least one constant in Miami-Dade and Broward results: The wealthiest schools never get Fs, and schools with high populations of poor students face an uphill battle to even get a C."

"For many American college students, the nation's higher education system increasingly is defined by two distinct paths. The first, taken primarily by white students, leads to the top U.S. institutions, while the other taken mostly by blacks and Hispanic students leads to community colleges and less prestigious open-access schools, according to a major study of college enrollment patterns over the past 20 years."

"The Rapides Parish School District and public school districts throughout Louisiana have programs designed to help, and they do so every year. We are glad they are there, and we wish there were more help available. The need is great. In Rapides Parish alone, where the average income is higher than in many other rural parishes, more than 400 schoolchildren were homeless during the 2012-13 academic year."

"With affirmative action under attack and economic mobility feared to be stagnating, top colleges profess a growing commitment to recruiting poor students. But a comparison of low-income enrollment shows wide disparities among the most competitive private colleges."

"A new report released Monday by the U.S. Census shows that two Florida cities with large concentrations of college students experience big declines in poverty rates when college students aren't counted."

"Up to 2,000 Ohio kindergartners from low-income families will be able to use state vouchers for private-school tuition this fall, thanks to a provision in the state budget approved last month."

"The small Las Lomas complex is Sacramento County's first HUD-funded permanent supportive housing program for chronically homeless, disabled people who are 55 and older. Located in a neighborhood off Stockton Boulevard, across the street from Next Move's family shelter, it has room for 22 older adults and provides supportive services such as senior nutrition assistance and Paratransit."

"A lack of available beds for senior citizens in the Kentucky area neighboring Ohio is increasingly forcing many to move north of the Ohio river, according to The Cincinnati Enquirer. The newspaper's investigation showed that Ohio taxpayers shell out more than $6 million per year for the Kentucky patients covered by Medicaid. Sixty percent of the cost is paid using federal dollars and the rest is picked up by the state."

"If kids count in the United States, and I am not sure they do, political leadership will change the course of education reform and begin a commitment to social reform that attends to the needs of the growing numbers of impoverished, working poor, and working class families who populate the country, and thus, depend on public education."

"Roughly 300,000 California grandparents 65,000 of them past the age of 65 have primary responsibility for their grandchildren. As the numbers have grown, so has the size of a particularly desperate sliver of grandparents who fall through the cracks in near-poverty, ineligible for assistance and services."

"Since high school dropouts have few opportunities for good-paying jobs and often have to rely on publicly funded hospitals for health care, cutting the dropout rate by 50 percent could save the state as much as $119 million a year in Medicaid spending, a recent study shows."

"The loss of summer learning has sparked concern that low-income students suffer as summer classes vanish. While wealthier families can afford summer camps and private academic studies, low-income children have limited opportunities beyond those at their neighborhood school."